It’s true, because my brother and I agree we’d easily pay $1.99 for it, and we rarely agree on games. He and I grew up on The Benny Hill Show. We had maybe six channels on the TV set back then, but it didn’t matter when one of them showed Benny Hill, who was a daily ritual for us when wasn’t pre-empted by the Indians or Cavaliers (which is why I hate baseball and basketball to this day). Granted, we didn’t get most of the jokes, having no understanding of sexual innuendo or early ’70s British pop culture, but there was Captain Fred Scuttle, sometimes were boobs, and always there was what has come to be known as the “Benny chase.”

I’ve stated before that pop culture has reached the point where people recognize a Benny chase parody without having the slightest idea who Benny Hill is. He was this friendly looking chap.

And this is a Benny Chase.

See, anytime you have people running in double-time to a saxophone solo, that’s a Benny Chase. You’ve seen it parodied a hundred times: The Simpsons, drunk guys in convenience stores, football highlights, even those horrible Disney TV shows have done it, prompting the fathers of the target audience to put the kids to bed early so we can bust out our Benny Hill Megaset (we all own it, it’s just a matter of how open we are about it).

The question I present to you today, then, is why am I not playing Benny Chase on my iPhone? Why has no one taken the endless runner and made a game based on the guy who is remembered almost specifically for running? You license the Benny Hill name, you get the rights to Boots Randolph’s Yakety Sax (yes, that song has a name other than “that Benny Hill song”), and you’ve immediately got a game my brother and I would stay up until 11:30 on a school night to play.

Of course, you’d need more than that, and that’s why when you decide to make this game, you need to hire me as your project lead. See, there are things you need to do. For instance:

As you’re running, you can power up by stopping to smack Jackie Wright repeatedly on the back of the head.

Visiting the “Wishing Well” makes the women sexier (this one will appeal to the Star Wars fans).

As for the basic gameplay, it’s relatively simple. Benny starts off as a prisoner, a doctor, a random guy on the street…whatever, and is being pursued by angry prisoners, policemen and sexy policewomen, angry patients, doctors and sexy nurses, angry citizens, random men and random sexy women (listen, I know this sounds sexist, but it was ’70s England, and it’s not like you’re doing any better with your modern Halloween costumes, ladies, so just relax and help me get this app developed). As Benny runs, he inadvertently insults or angers more people, and they join the chase. Benny can pick up things such as umbrellas along the way, and if you tap the screen as you pass the bus stop, the umbrella will hook and tear off a woman’s skirt, causing her to join the chase in her underwear. The more people you have chasing you when you reach the level’s end, the more you’re rewarded. However, that also increases the chances you’ll get caught. To help you out, you can pick up the Bob Todd and Henry McGee power-ups, which will divert attention away from you.

Obviously, there are numerous levels and scenarios here, and you’ll get Hills Angels bonus levels, which can also be acquired via in-app purchase if you’re not doing well. In fact, I’ve already got the first two years of DLC laid out for whichever development company wants to contact me about this, so everything’s pretty much done in that regard; you just need to do the, you know, actual work.

And honestly, even if you want to outright steal my idea and just make the game your own, that’s fine, because I just want to play it. And seriously, if you want to make a lot of money off of it, occasionally show an Indians game when users launch the app, then make them pay $0.99 to get past it back to Benny. You’ve already got my dollar.

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